Parasitic Strix

Multicolor design wearing a monocolor coat. The body is mono-blue and the trigger is conditional, but the condition (controlling a black permanent) is the whole point: it is built for two-color decks that want a Drain Life stapled to a flying blocker without paying the second pip up front. The artifact type does the same quiet work, letting it slot into any blue deck running an artifact theme regardless of its other colors. The gating is elegant because it asks for a permanent rather than a spell or a color of mana, so any black creature, enchantment, artifact, or token on your side flips the ability on (a basic Swamp will not, since lands are colorless). But the timing is stricter than it looks: this is an intervening-if trigger, so it has to see that black permanent at the exact moment the Bird enters or the ability never goes on the stack at all. Resolve the condition first, then resolve the drain. That window matters for the recursive line, where flickering or rebuying the creature gives repeated two-point swings only as long as the black permanent is standing when it re-enters. The drain is small and the flyer is fragile, but the design is a clean lesson in writing a card that reads as blue and plays as Dimir: the floor is a 2/2 flier anyone can run, and the ceiling is a recurring life-swing engine for the decks that meet one easy requirement.